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Message in a bottle from Scottish girl found in Norway after 25 years

bbc.co.uk

51–60 of 106 posts

Re: Message in a bottle from Scottish girl found in Norway after 25 years

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no use for LinkedIn generally (at least not now) but I've had an account for years with links to some old acquaintances I don't really care to be associated with anymore, due to several industry, geographical, and social changes. I checked it on a whim about a year ago and found an old message from someone I hadn't talked to in over 7 years, very professional message just trying to catch up. I have no other so…

Been pretending I'm dead to linkedin for years and feeling pretty good about it, for anecdata.

Nah just reply back. That shit makes my day. If I wanted to talk you all the time I'd ask for your phone number.

Re: Message in a bottle from Scottish girl found in Norway after 25 years

#52

> found bottle in 2020 > The Norwegian sent a Facebook message for Joanna, but the former Peterhead schoolgirl did not spot it until Monday [January 2022] This pretty much sums up Facebook/Instagram inboxes.

It feels somehow significant that the Facebook reply ended up being its own message in a bottle.

Years ago when I was a regular Facebook user, there was a language setting called "English (pirate)" that would turn your inbox into a "Bottle o’ messages". Not sure if it's still an option but I quite enjoyed it :)

https://reface.me/hacks/make-facebook-talk-like-a-pirate/

Re: Message in a bottle from Scottish girl found in Norway after 25 years

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I'm glad I learned cursive in school, even though I'm terrible at it. Far more valuable than learning about the various species of local turtle, or 1000 other things we did in primary school that I've since forgotten.

Learning about a load of random stuff in primary school is incredibly important. How else do children find out what they're interested in?

I'm not arguing that primary school shouldn't teach a bunch of random things, just that I think cursive is at least as useful to learn as most of them. Having it in the curriculum doesn't mean less time for foundational material for later years.

Re: Message in a bottle from Scottish girl found in Norway after 25 years

#55

I love when I do something that comes back around years later after I’ve almost completely forgotten it. Probably my coolest version of this was on a popular run/race in Arizona where I bumped into someone who remembered a software project I did a decade earlier. As I finished a segment, they gave me a high five and left a bewildered but soon amused runner behind.

I had a similar chance meeting on Craigslist in 2012 - I bought an SSD off someone who I'd been contemporary with on some Netscape/Mozilla forums in the early 2000s. This was before Craigslist implemented e-mail address obfuscation (don't get me wrong, this was a good thing), and he recognized me only by my domain name.

Re: Message in a bottle from Scottish girl found in Norway after 25 years

#57

This makes me wonder - what’s the digital equivalent of a message in a bottle? Is it maybe a message hidden on a random URL string?

WeChat has a feature named "message in a bottle". It functions much like you would expect; you can send a message to a random user or recieve one.

Re: Message in a bottle from Scottish girl found in Norway after 25 years

#58
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d bet almost everyone who uses Instagram and/or Facebook has stories like that. It’s crazy how poor of a UX choice it is, and I imagine Facebook did it this way only because they’re so bad at spam prevention.

I have no use for LinkedIn generally (at least not now) but I've had an account for years with links to some old acquaintances I don't really care to be associated with anymore, due to several industry, geographical, and social changes. I checked it on a whim about a year ago and found an old message from someone I hadn't talked to in over 7 years, very professional message just trying to catch up. I have no other so…

We are in covid times, people will understand.

Re: Message in a bottle from Scottish girl found in Norway after 25 years

#59

This makes me wonder - what’s the digital equivalent of a message in a bottle? Is it maybe a message hidden on a random URL string?

Your facebook page being restored after 20 years since you reached support.

Or that unread myspace mesage gets sent to you in a fishing scam.

Re: Message in a bottle from Scottish girl found in Norway after 25 years

#60
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US they've stopped teaching cursive, at least in some areas.

In the right hands and with the right practice, cursive is beautiful and a work of art.

I feel sort of neutral about it. I always felt like it took me more time so I stopped using it. But with others I don't have much preference one way or another. I guess I prefer non-cursive? But some of it is very beautiful.

There are a lot of children in my extended family, and at some point I noticed they were very confused by cursive, and saw it as a curiosity, almost like there was a secret alphabet adults used to use. When I asked around about it, I found out they were no longer being taught it, and then found articles about how it was disappearing from curricula.

It's mostly interesting to me because it was such a big part of my writing education, and my teachers were so adamant about it, and it was so common. So it's strange to me to see it just disappear.

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